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Saturday, December 21, 2013

A Review of Frank Schaeffer's 2013 Novel: AND GOD SAID, "BILLY!"

I have just read Frank Schaeffer's latest book: a novel titled And God Said, "Billy!" This post will present a review of the novel.

First, a summary. The main
character of And God Said, “Billy!”
is an ultra-fundamentalist Christian who believes that God has instructed him
to leave his wife, Ruth, and their three-year-old daughter, Rebecca, in New
Hampshire and move alone to California to make a film about the end of the
world, when Christians will be raptured into heaven. His name is Billy
Graham—his parents named him after the famous evangelist. As the novel opens,
Billy has been away from home for three years without seeing Ruth and Rebecca,
who is now six. Although he misses his wife and daughter terribly, Billy
believes that obedience to God requires him to concentrate fully on his
film-making mission. However, no one in Hollywood has expressed any interest in
his apocalyptic film script. Eventually, Billy is persuaded that he must first
make a more crowd-pleasing film as a “stepping stone” into the Hollywood film
world—and he finally finds someone who engages him to direct a “sexy thriller”
in South Africa. This turns out to be a very shady business deal and multiple
problems ensue. Billy finds himself trapped in an extremely dangerous
situation, from which he is rescued in an amazing way that I won’t reveal in
this post. The rescue is not only physical but also spiritual—for Billy’s
narrow fundamentalist views have been sucking the very life out of his soul.

And God Said, “Billy!” is Frank Schaeffer’s answer to the question “Who is
God?” through a novel-length story. While acknowledging that no definitive
answer can be given to this question, Frank Schaeffer has nonetheless found a satisfying
answer that embraces the mystery, love, and paradox at the heart of the
universe.

Frank Schaeffer dealt
extensively with the question “Who is God?” in his 2009 non-fiction book Patience With God: Faith for People Who
Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism). In Patience
With God, Frank Schaeffer very effectively inter-weaves stories and
explanations to show that it is through giving and receiving love, rather than through
any system of doctrine, that we experience God. And God Said, “Billy!” makes this point in another way—through
fiction. Here, we have a whole novel in which to engage with the main
character, so that what the main character learns, we also learn at a deep
level because of that long-term, novel-length engagement.

And God Said, “Billy!” is extraordinary in showing the machinations of the
human mind in justifying wrong behavior. Sometimes we hear of Christian pastors
who have sex with prostitutes or who embezzle church funds, and we wonder how
someone who purports to follow Jesus and to lead others in the ways of Jesus
could do such wrong things. And God Said,
“Billy!” shows precisely how. Frank Schaeffer takes us inside Billy’s mind,
where we listen to Billy’s thoughts as he justifies lying, stealing, attending
a night club featuring nude women, and directing a film full of sex and
violence with no artistic merit whatsoever. Frank Schaeffer takes us through
the twists and turns of Billy’s “logic” as Billy convinces himself that these
actions are actually God’s directives. Some of this is quite funny, and I found
myself laughing aloud at some of Billy’s mental gymnastics.

And God Said, “Bllly!” is also extraordinary in showing how our view of God
will result in suffering or in freedom. The novel illustrates the intense
suffering inherent in seeing God as a judge who sends people to hell for wrong
beliefs and wrong actions. We really “get” that suffering because we see it up
close as we walk through the novel with Billy. And God Said, “Billy!” also opens the freeing possibility of seeing
God as a mystery of love. We “get” this, too, as we walk with Billy through the
aching love he gives to his daughter, Rebecca, and the gratuitous love he
receives from his rescuers. Could it be that the love we experience—both as
giver and as receiver—is a stronger and clearer indicator of who God is than
the body of doctrine put forth by any religious institution?

To fully appreciate And God Said, “Billy!” I think we need
to see it as a satire, perhaps even a lampoon, of ultra-fundamentalist
Christianity. Frank Schaeffer stretches the exaggeration inherent in this type
of writing almost to, but not beyond, the breaking point. As a result, I found
certain sections of the novel a bit tedious, though the novel as a whole
offered more than enough intrigue for me to continue through the rough patches.
I’m very glad that I did, because the last four chapters of the novel contain exquisite
gems of truth that ring all the truer for me because I stuck with Billy through
all that he endured in order to learn them.

Frank Schaeffer is in a
unique position to write And God Said,
“Billy!” As a young adult, he himself earned his living as a Christian
fundamentalist speaker and writer, but eventually he became deeply dissatisfied
with this worldview and converted to Greek Orthodoxy, where the mystery of God
(rather than facts about God) is emphasized. Frank Schaeffer has also directed
several films, at least one of them in South Africa. And God Said, “Billy!” is enriched by Frank Schaeffer’s own inside
experience as a film director, as a former committed Christian fundamentalist,
and as one who has adopted a deeper but less defined view of God.